BREMERTON — Prosecutors have charged a Bremerton man with a hate crime for allegedly stalking a Black man at work, nearly hitting him with a vehicle, challenging him to a fight and calling him the n-word.
The man told Bremerton police problems with Christopher Humphries, 42, started Dec. 4 when the man and his manager went to Sirens bar, the Kitsap Sun reported.
Humphries, who is white, was working as a bartender and checked the man’s ID, police wrote in court documents. The man said Humphries served him a beer but threw his ID at him and called him the n-word, according to court documents.
The man and his manager walked out and told officers Humphries followed them, yelling at the man, calling him the slur, puffing up his chest and balling his fists. The man told officers he thought the bartender was about to assault him so he punched Humphries in the face and left.
On Monday, Humphries, driving an older ambulance, drove onto the car lot where the man worked, nearly hitting him and two customers he was speaking to, according to statements from the man and a co-worker.
Humphries then got out of the ambulance, again called the man the n-word repeatedly and challenged him to fight.
Officers spoke to the man and found Humphries at the bar where he allegedly said he confronted the man at his work and said the man had sucker punched him at the bar. Humphries denied calling the man the slur. Officers arrested him.
The hate crime felony Humphries was charged with Thursday in Kitsap County Superior Court is the new name for the state’s hate crime statute, which until 2019 had been called “malicious harassment.”
Finding that the state has experienced a “sharp increase” in instances of malicious harassment since 2015, lawmakers renamed the crime “to its more commonly understood title of ‘hate crime offense.'”
